What is the public health impact?

Items of Interest

Other than the NHANES, no national surveys have been able to provide
estimates of usual dietary intakes
or objective assessments of physical activity, sleep, and muscle strength. The
NHANES estimates contribute to public health aims in several arenas:

Surveillance. The ability to estimate the population's
distribution of usual intakes of foods
and nutrients, within a survey that also assesses health and other
risk-related behaviors (such as physical activity), allows researchers the
unique opportunity to study relationships among all these factors. The muscle
strength assessment provides the first national measure of this aspect of
fitness since the 1960s, and the objective measure of sleep duration has never
been collected.

Health Promotion/Disease Prevention. Several of the Healthy People 2020 objectives
relate to food and nutrient intake (e.g., those on fruits, vegetables, and whole
grains).

Health Policy. The Dietary Guidelines for
Americans represent a statement of federal nutrition policy, and they
guide all federal nutrition education and food assistance efforts. The release
of the 2008
Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans highlights the increased
focus on this behavioral risk factor. Usual dietary intake estimates and
objective estimates of physical activity will help in assessing how well the
public is following those guidelines.

Health Disparities. Because the NHANES sample is nationally
representative and includes persons from a range of income, education, and
sociocultural backgrounds, the resulting estimates of food intake and physical
activity can be examined by many variables to determine whether there are
differences in these behaviors that may result in health disparities.